He's at Hogwarts
by Aima D. Duragon
Summary: Fudge hates his trips to Azkaban. He hates the smells and the cold and the depressive atmosphere, but most of all, he hates a particular prisoner. (Or, the story of how Sirius Black came into possession of a copy of the Daily Prophet in HPatPoA).


**Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition - Round 4**

 **Prompt:** We have the Potters, we have the Malfoys, and we have the Weasleys. All wonderfully well known and lovable families. But what about the smaller, important, but less significant families? Let's not forget about them! For this round, you will be writing about those forgotten families! You can have multiple members, or just one; so long as the focus is around your given family.

 **A/N:** I do realize that at this point in canon Percy Weasley is still at Hogwarts (or I'm fairly certain he is, anyway), but I decided to throw him in just to give Fudge an interesting foil.

* * *

"Where did you hide the bodies?" Cornelius Fudge repeated tersely, his fingers clenching against the cuffs of his jacket.

The man, huddling in the corner of his cell, shuddered. His knuckles were bloody from his nails scraping over them again and again and again. "Then I stood on the sand of the sea," he whispered feverishly. "And I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion—"

"He's obviously gone mad like the rest."

Huffing, Cornelius turned to face his assistant, Percy. The boy was wearing his usual disdainful expression. In fact, his nose seemed to have permanently turned up from the perpetual sneer he wore. Even his blue eyes were oddly cold. Cornelius couldn't say that he cared much for the boy, despite the ties to Dumbledore his family name gave him.

"Perhaps," Cornelius grumbled, turning towards the nearest guard. "How many Dementors did you say you kept near this wing?"

"Ten, sir," the guard responded.

Cornelius nodded and turned back towards Percy, watching him scribble down another note. The boy took notes like an addict took cocaine. Cornelius hadn't the faintest idea why—it wasn't as if he ever read any of them.

Percy rolled his shoulders beneath his threadbare robes, his quill still moving at a furious pace. "That's it for your quota for this year, sir. We can still make it back to the Ministry for your three o'clock appointment with the Funderwunkis Brigade if we apparate now."

Cornelius pursed his lips and made his way out into the main hall, Percy and the guard trailing after him. He'd always hated this part of the job; the judicial part. It was his responsibility to make a yearly effort to try and reopen cold cases. He could've sent a delegate of course—he could send a delegate for pretty much any part of his job—but this was one of the directives he'd chosen to do himself. He was well aware of how weak most of the Ministry officials found him, and he needed to prove them wrong if he wanted their constituents' votes next term. He needed to prove to them that they hadn't made a mistake in choosing him after Dumbledore had turned the position down.

"No," Cornelius said, his voice thin and cracked in the chilled air of Azkaban's halls. "We have one more stop to make. Take me to Sirius Black."

Percy visibly paled. "B—but, sir! Black's not even on the list—"

"They never received a confession from him. As far as I'm concerned, that means the case is unfinished." Cornelius turned his gaze to the guard, puffing himself up to his full height. He'd never been a particularly large or imposing man, but he was certainly a great pretender. "Take me to him."

The guard gave a terse nod and set off down the hall at a brisk pace. Cornelius followed at his heels, keeping his features stoic and determined despite his pounding heart's insistence otherwise. This was a rare opportunity, and if he leaked it correctly to the press, well, maybe Lucius Malfoy would think twice before snubbing another one of his lunch invitations. As every good politician knew, a little drama won more friends than boring.

It was no secret that the part Cornelius had played in the capture of Sirius Black had been instrumental in propelling his political career. The part that no one knew was that he'd simply been in the right place at the right time. He'd been stuck in the office doing paperwork when the Potter's siren had sounded. Believing it to be nothing more than a false alarm, he'd rushed to the scene, quite in the mood to tell off whoever had the audacity to set off an official Ministry charm.

A shudder crept down Cornelius' spine as he remembered what had met him when he'd arrived at Godric's Hollow that fateful night: smoke, mixed with the unmistakable tang of dark magic, swirling over a crater the likes of which Cornelius had never seen before or since. And in the middle of it all...Sirius Black. Laughing. As if he hadn't a care in the world. As if he hadn't just murdered his alleged best friend of ten years. It was a sound that Cornelius feared he would never forget.

The guard led them deeper and deeper into the depths of Azkaban, until the cold was so bitter that his breath frosted and the darkness was so thick that candlelight could do little to pierce it. Even the air itself had taken on a different quality—heavy and laden with oppressive layers of magic that made Cornelius' steps slow and his breathing labored.

"We're well into the high-security ward now," the guard said gruffly. "Mind your step, Minister. They have a lumbering-legs jinx set up down here that likes to act up now and again."

Behind Cornelius, Percy huffed. "How much farther?"

The guard chuckled, the sound rumbling off the stone like thunder. "Not far now."

They reached their destination much too soon for Cornelius' taste. The moment he saw the bars, fear struck through him, threatening to crack him in half.

"Hey, Black!" The guard banged on the cell bars with his wand. "Visitors!"

Twin orbs of silver caught the light as something amongst the shadows moved, slinking towards them like a beast. Cornelius clenched his teeth together to keep them from chattering as Sirius Black's face finally came into view.

Sirius grinned up at him, and there was something undeniably sharp about it. His canines seemed almost vampiric. "Well, if it isn't my old pal, Fudge. Finally come to set me free, have you?"

Cornelius bristled. "Hardly. I've come for your confession."

"Have you?" Both of Sirius' brows lifted, nearly disappearing into his shaggy mess of hair. "Well, that's too bad then. I hate to think that you traveled so far only to return to your shiny new office empty handed."

"I have an offer for you." Cornelius pushed the words out through clenched teeth. That seemed to be the only way he could get them out.

"Somehow I doubt that you are in possession of anything that could tempt me." Sirius grinned. "I'm not as easily bought as most of the greasy Ministry officials you employ."

The audacity! The arrogance! Cornelius felt his blood simmer just beneath his skin as anger inflated in his stomach. "I could have you thrown into solitary for that comment!"

Sirius shrugged his gaunt shoulders. "Hate to say it, but it can't really get much more solitary than this. Dementor-addled brains don't exactly make for decent conversation."

"And yet they seem to have little effect on you," Cornelius hissed.

"Trust me," Sirius flashed another pointed smile, "I'm affected."

Despite the sincerity that Cornelius detected in Sirius' voice, the man hardly seemed it. There was a certain spark in his eyes that this place seemed to have drained out of everyone else. Maybe even the Dementors were frightened of him.

"Have you heard that your godson has started at Hogwarts?"

Whatever humor had lingered in Sirius' eyes was immediately snuffed and Cornelius basked in it like a ray of sunlight. Nothing ever pleased him quite so much as gaining the upper hand in a conversation. "He's at Hogwarts?"

Cornelius jerked his chin at Percy. "Show him."

Percy merely goggled at him.

Huffing, Cornelius gestured impatiently and held out his hand. "Today's Prophet, boy!"

"Oh!" Percy was so eager to pull the newspaper out of his bag that he nearly dropped everything else in the process. After a moment of rummaging, Percy handed him a pristine copy.

Cornelius flipped past the front page, where the entire monstrosity of the Weasley clan beamed up at him from somewhere in the desert, to the second page. Harry Potter's portrait was framed in the top right corner directly under the headline: _The Boy Who Lived, a Parseltongue?_

Smirking, Cornelius shoved the paper through the bars. "There, you see?"

Sirius took the paper like a man possessed, his dark eyes igniting hungrily as he stared down at the boy's picture.

"Would you be interested in seeing him?" Cornelius asked.

Behind him, Percy made a choked sound which Cornelius resolutely ignored.

Sirius looked up at him, a fragile hope flickering across his face that Cornelius couldn't help but revel in. He was the one with the real power here.

"I could arrange that, you know," Cornelius continued, pouring extra honey into his tone.

"In exchange for?"

Cornelius smiled. "Your confession, of course." He made it sound like the easiest thing in the world—like they would be exchanging cordialities instead of political favors.

Sirius' gaze dropped back to the paper, his mouth working. "They'd give me the kiss…if I confessed."

"They might give you the kiss anyway," Cornelius said with a shrug. It wasn't a lie, per say. He'd heard officials discuss it ten years ago.

Slowly, Sirius closed the paper, his expression grim. Cornelius held himself very still, acutely aware of how quiet the room had grown. Sirius was actually contemplating his offer. Cornelius' mouth watered from the tang of victory.

Then, in the span of an instant, something changed.

Sirius' black eyes went wide, and he leapt to his feet so suddenly that Cornelius couldn't help but flinch back, his hand immediately reaching for his wand. "He's at Hogwarts!" Sirius shouted, his fingers gripping the Prophet so tightly that the print crinkled and the pages ripped. "He's at Hogwarts!"

"Give me that confession, Black!" Cornelius rumbled.

The guard rounded the corner not a moment later, his mouth stretched down in a snarl. "What's going on here?"

Sirius' teeth gleamed like a flash of lightning in the night. "He's at Hogwarts!"

"Mad," Percy wheezed. "Just like the rest. He's absolutely mad."

Sneering, Cornelius turned on his heel and brushed past Percy and the guard. "Come on, Percy. We're leaving." What an incredible waste of time. Maybe he would send that delegate next year after all.


End file.
